The basic building blocks of the whole numbers remain mysterious.

Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Katie has a PhD in maths, ...

Thousands of computers across the world are currently scouring the number line in a scavenger hunt for rare mathematical gems. Enthusiasts looking for larger and larger prime numbers, which are ...

Image made with elements from Canva. Let’s go back to grade school—do you remember learning about prime numbers? They’re numbers that can only be divided by themselves and one. So 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and ...

On his way to winning a Fields Medal, James Maynard has cut a path through simple-sounding questions about prime numbers that have stumped mathematicians for centuries. Number theorists, however, ...

Using a notion called integer partitions, mathematicians have discovered a new way to detect prime numbers while also connecting two areas of math in an unexpected way When you purchase through links ...

For all of the recent strides we’ve made in the math world—like a supercomputer finally solving the Sum of Three Cubes problem that puzzled mathematicians for 65 years—we’re forever crunching ...

Like many math students, I had dreams of mathematical greatness. I thought I was close once. A difficult algebra problem in college kept me working late into the night. After hours of struggle, I felt ...

An institution has offered a $1 million prize to anyone who can solve a famous math problem that has puzzled mathematicians for more than a century. The Riemann hypothesis, first proposed by German ...

A brilliant young mathematician becomes an enemy of the deep state in a paranoid new potboiler streaming on Apple TV+. By Calum Marsh Leo Woodall is the first to admit that he doesn’t know a lot about ...